"All-Positive Monday 14", Paw Gaming

In an effort to continue improving his eye-paw coordination, today we played a paw game.

The game we played was where I had a treat in my hand and moved it around, saying "get it, get it" (note to self, look up a shorter word for 'get it' in Spanish instead of the one I found before) and he, of course, tried to grab it. I don't have a name for it but I'll call it "Slap the Hand" for lack of any other creativity!

Later, I'll work on eye-mouth coordination, but this time I wanted him to use his paws to "slap" my hand. When he succeeded, I would praise him and give him the treat. For the first few times, he was still trying to grab with his mouth, but then he started realizing what was working.

At that point, I moved my hand a little faster and more erratically. I saw him use his paws more, trying to slap my hand and predict its movements. He kept getting better and I had to keep moving faster to make it challenging. I also changed height with the hand. He responded by using his "sit pretty" pose (pictured below) in an attempt to slap the hand. Dang smart dog!

He's not begging for food, but to play "Slap the Hand" again!
I don't know where he got that paw crossing from. He just came up with it.

Once that happened, he started going into the pose on his own even before I started the game. I took this and made it the signal that he was "ready" to play.

He got so good, I had to move my hand much more quickly and randomly. I included some start-and-stop movements, "jerky" movements and changing height much more frequently. He was having quite the time playing, and it was tiring him a bit it seems as his tongue starting hanging from the side of his mouth a little! I guess it's the combination of focus and concentration (tracking the hand with his eyes and his trying to predict the movements) and physical effort (taking the pose, moving quickly in short direction changes) along with of course the drive to get the food.

Later, I turned it into a bit of him not trying to get the food from my hand, but put a paw on it, leave it there, and then look at me. This might take some doing, but maybe the foundation of an idea formed in his head. For today, I simply delayed giving him the treat when he hit my hand (I also slowed the movement down and kept it more predictable). He clawed at my hand (I suppose that could be an indicator too, he could claw at the object hiding the treat), but then realized that wasn't working. He looked up at me wondering "what's up?". I moved the hand a little and he pawed it, and then just held it there.

That was a start and he got the treat. Next time, he did it again, and got another reward. Now I waited for him to look at me. I could see a bit of thinking on his part as he put the paw on my hand and was like "now what do I do?" he slowly looked up at me, which got rewarded. He did it a second time, and after that, I ended the session on that success.

It was great and quite a different activity. We'll be playing this again for sure!

"All-Positive Monday" VIII: Work That Rear, Wally!

We had a lot of fun doing the as-planned rear-end awareness and some work on catching/eye-paw coordination games.

Back it up, Wally!

Most of the time was used on the rear-end awareness as it's slower paced and more challenging for him at the same time. At first, we worked on backing up and I had him backing up back and forth along the hallway. We went just a couple steps at a time at first, trying to emphasize keeping the rear straight. I noticed that if I held something over his head (like the treat), it was easier for him to get the idea or keeping his form right.

Once I was doing that, we were able to start moving a bit faster and, more importantly, getting more steps in at a time. At this point, I tried getting him to turn backwards by angling how I "walk into him" to get him to back up (he's right in front of me). This is a work in progress for sure, but it was interesting to try it.

Hit The Book, Or At Least Step On It

Then we moved to the paws-on-the-book exercise and it was every bit the challenge as expected. Going to the right is "easier" for him as he moves much easier shifting around the right. When trying to do the same thing for the left, he is much stiffer and it's almost like he has to think about how to actually move himself to make the movement, or he thinks he can't (or perhaps actually does not know how to) make the movement and tries something else - in this case, either coming off the book or putting his back paws on the book and sitting down with all four paws crammed on the book.

I suppose this means he's "right-pawed" or somehow is just more comfortable turning/moving towards the right than the left. Something I might have to explore...

Get Up On Those Back Paws, Please!

After that, I had him stand on his back paws and walk beside me. Again, I had a treat to help him get the idea on where to focus and to help him with his form for best balance. This was harder, but he was doing it. We started with just a few steps at a slow pace, and it seems like we'll be needing to work with this more, but he was getting the hang of it.

I then moved the treat around and he had to keep following it while standing on his back paws still. I moved the treat somewhat quickly and in random directions with sudden direction changes. This, he was better at for some reason (I would have thought it would be harder), and he loved this. At this point, he was getting more excited as well.

Lastly on the stand-on-back-paws list, I had him try to just balance and stay perfectly still. This exercise got him whining with excitement as we wanted to move, but instead the tail went crazy wagging as he tried to stay still. He had to remain motionless, like holding the pose, for a few seconds before he got the reward.

Brief Work On Catching

After a little break to let him rest a bit, we started on the catching. For this, I used some "heavier" pasta shapes (corkscrews) so they could fly on a more steady path. At first, he had a hard time tracking it, but then he started trying to grab it. His "bangs" got in the way a couple times, obscuring his vision. He did start catching more of them from a short distance and I knelt down to his level. We didn't get to work on too much with this, but we'll continue to work on it later on. He certainly wasn't bored, though!

Slap Me Some Paw, Dog!

Later on in the evening, we got a chance to work on the eye-paw coordination. As expected, he LOVED this! I would egg him on with "Get it! Get it!" and "nipping" him with my fingers to really get him going. He jumped down in to his play bow and was intently following my hand around, sometimes trying to pounce and other times slapping the floor with how hard he was doing it.

When he got one of those slaps on my fist, he got the prize. This also helped him to understand what would work. At first he was trying to stick his nose in to pry my fist open, or sometimes grabbing my wrist in his mouth to try to hold it (which was surprising!), but he starting figuring out that only stopping my fist with his paws would get me to give up the goods.

In all, yet another great "All-Positive Monday"!

"All-Positive Monday" VIII Plans

Tomorrow will be the 8th All-Positive Monday and the plans I have for this one is to work more on his rear-end awareness and eye/mouth/paw coordination.

For the rear-end awareness, I will work more on backing up and movement while standing on just his back paws. This will continue helping him get used to controlling himself with just those legs and help his balance and stability in that situation. He already loves standing up "like a person" so why not use this to both our advantages?

I'll also work on walking backwards, something he's got the basic idea of and we have a cue for it ("back up" - oh, I know, so very creative). I can tell he has some problem with it when he has to keep doing it when his backside starts curving instead of maintaining a straight line. A few steps and he'll keep going straight back, but after that, he'll start to curve.

Hopefully, as a side-effect of sorts, he'll get better at doing the pop-up stand as well. We need to work on "stand" in general since he doesn't quite get that it's just to stand up. Not get up and come towards me. That can be something we'll do later in the week.

I'll probably also do the "front paws on book" exercise where he has to turn himself using just his back paws. This is HARD for him, especially going to his left. Perfect.

The coordination is going to be more fun for him since that's mostly going to seem like a game, especially for eye-mouth coordination since that's just catching. The question is: What to use? Should I use food tidbits to heighten his interest, but he gets them only when he catches? That seems to have an advantage in that the catch is self-rewarding (he eats whatever it is). Should I use a toy or other object? The advantage there is that most of the time, he won't be catching food, but something else. Hmm...something to experiment with.

For eye-paw coordination, I have an idea for a new game for him. I'll hold some food in my fist (closed up so he can't get it) and move my fist around on the floor. I'll encourage him to get my fist, and to do so, he has to put his paw on my fist. I'll stop and then let him get the food. (If I can find a blue marker, I'll draw a square on the back of my hand as a target)

He'll love this for sure, and it should help him with tracking objects, timing, and reaction time.

That will be the plan for tomorrow.


P.S. Sorry for the recent infrequency of posting. I'm newer to blogging than I am dog training (4 months vs 3 years) so I'm still getting the hang of how to do it "right". Hence the experiments with the ads or no, posting frequency, layout, colors, etc.